Monday, March 03, 2008

Buckwheat Kasha with Mince

Following from yesterday's buckwheat theme, here's another recent buckwheat dish we recently enjoyed. We do love buckwheat kasha or porridge as it is, and eat it occasionally as a side dish to some grilled pork. But sometimes it's nice to spice it up with a little extra. Adding pork or beef mince to the kasha is one way of making a humble side dish into a delicious main course.

Note that buckwheat is naturally gluten-free, so it's a suitable and tasty grain alternative to all those who need to avoid gluten.

Heat the oil on a frying pan over high heat, add the mince and brown, stirring every now and then.Reduce the heat to moderate, add the carrot and onions, season with salt and pepperand cook for 5 minutes to slighly soften the onions.Heat some oil in a large heavy saucepan, add the buckwheat groats and toast them for about 5 minutes, stirring to coat and toast evenly.Add the fried meat and onion mixture to the buckwheat groats, give it a stir and pour over the boiling water.Cover the saucepan and simmer on a low heat for 30-40 minutes, until buckwheat groats are soft.Serve hot with sliced pickled cucumbers and cold horseradish and sour cream sauce*.

* To make the cold horseradish sauce grate some fresh horseradish, add enough sour cream to achieve the consistency and potency you like and season with salt.

LEFTOVERS? No worries - simply heat the cold buckwheat kasha in some oil or butter on the following day.

One of the many porridges that I tried first when I arrived to Estonia. And certainly the first I grew to LOVE (working hard with liking manna (?)). It is versatile, and easy to prepare, available even in Colombia, which I was very surprised about since we are too concentrated on corn. In Spanish, just in case, the name is trigo sarraceno.

This mixture is an old family favourite actually - my mother used it in cabbage rolls and also in pirogi. Good either with mince or without - I have never understood why buckwheat is so little used. regards from edella in the UK

I just accidentaly pop into your blog (was looking for buckwheat translation in english) but got hooked as its quite fun to compare estonian kitchen with lithuanian one. They are so different, but have loads of similarities at the same time ( especially noticable when i missing home-made lithuanian food) if compare with lets say with french or british kitchens (i work in UK french cuisine restaurant). In shorter - cool blog ;)

Wendy – that’s hilarious – I never thought of that. But you’re right – it’s a haggis lookalike indeed!

Sophie – lol at haggis :)

Tanna – what, no buckwheat??? (I was upset the other day to discover that I was out of wasabi paste – another kitchen essential of mine. I didn’t even check before deciding on the menu, I simply assumed it’s there, as always).

Joey – yes, in Scotland I bought buckwheat in health food stores.

Annemarie – my recent favourite is quinoa (instead of rice or couscous). Have you tried this? And yes, buckwheat, of course..

Edella – interesting idea to use this as a stuffing for cabbage rolls. We usually use meat or mushrooms alone, or then meat and rice (see here for my cabbage roll recipe).

Jeanne – it’s not a common ingredient in the UK, so I forgive you.

Kristopher – thanks for the explanation.

Catch A Glimpse – I imagine that Latvian, Estonian and Lithuanian kitchens have a lot in common – but then each is still distinguishable. I find the same when comparing Estonian-Finnish-Swedish-Danish dishes – very similar, yet slightly different. When I was exchange student in Denmark many, many years ago, my Danish classmates were very disappointed to learn that we ate potatoes, meatballs and liver pate in Estonia – they thought these were ‘very’ Danish.